Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026

The bill authorizes money for U.S. intelligence agencies and programs in fiscal year 2026, including a classified funding schedule and specific sums for the Intelligence Community Management Account and the CIA Retirement and Disability Fund. It states that no intelligence activity is allowed unless it is already permitted under the Constitution or other laws. It creates a National Counterintelligence Center inside the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, led by a Senate‑confirmed director who becomes the main advisor on counterintelligence. This Center gets broad authority to direct, coordinate, and conduct counterintelligence across the government, run a National Counterintelligence Task Force, manage a new National Counterintelligence Program budget, lead damage assessments for leaks of classified national intelligence, and issue long‑term strategies and regular reports to Congress. Existing counterintelligence offices and authorities are shifted and renamed to fit this new structure. The bill adds many general rules for the intelligence community. It raises the transaction limit for certain National Reconnaissance Office acquisitions, requires each major intelligence element to name a senior official for biotechnology issues, and orders removal of a specific foreign AI application (DeepSeek) from national security systems with narrow exceptions. It directs creation of a knowledge‑sharing system on international cartels and transnational criminal organizations, and requires notices to Congress when closing U.S. diplomatic posts affects intelligence work. The bill sets government‑wide rules for using artificial intelligence. It requires new policies for training AI models on classified data, tells the Director of National Intelligence to speed up security reviews for new AI tools, orders common metrics for technology adoption, and directs the National Security Agency to create an “AI Security Playbook” to protect advanced AI systems from theft, including unclassified guidance for private developers. Several sections focus on specific agencies. The CIA must issue guidance on what counts as “novel and significant” spending for congressional notice and gains authority to counter unmanned aircraft over specially designated CIA or ODNI sites under detailed conditions, including reporting, coordination with FAA, time limits, and record‑handling rules. The Department of Defense must avoid duplicate purchases of commercial data, build a secure system to track and deconflict commercial vendors used for clandestine activities, and shut down certain advisory boards for NGA and NRO while expanding NRO’s use of commercial imagery. The bill increases oversight of the FBI and other elements on sensitive matters. The FBI must notify key congressional leaders when it opens counterintelligence assessments or investigations on federal candidates, officeholders, or covered congressional staff and must report on U.S. persons on the terrorist watchlist. The FBI also has to notify congressional intelligence committees about material changes in policies for the terrorist and transnational organized crime watchlists and share governing guidance on request. The bill builds a large framework for open‑source intelligence and commercial data. It defines “publicly available information,” “commercially available information,” and “open‑source intelligence,” tells the DNI to make open‑source work efficient and coordinated, and assigns officials to oversee training, technology, data, collection management, partnerships, and standards. A designated official must oversee all commercial data acquisitions to avoid duplication, control costs, and manage requirements. New budget, reporting, training, auditing, and quarterly briefing rules cover how agencies buy and use public and commercial data. Privacy and U.S. person protections are addressed in several ways. The bill requires a standardized training course for personnel who collect public or commercial information for intelligence purposes, and it orders each intelligence element to purge incidentally collected public or commercial information about U.S. persons. It also adds oversight and audit requirements on spending for open‑source and commercial data and keeps existing privacy and civil liberties laws in force. Workforce sections set rules for personnel practices and benefits. The Defense Intelligence Agency must provide unclassified performance feedback and appraisals that employees can see, including for many departing employees. Across the intelligence community, leaders may not require political or ideological activism or use it to influence positive personnel decisions, and personnel actions may not be motivated by goals such as reversing societal discrimination or supplying demographic “role models,” except where characteristics like language or background are a bona fide job qualification (for example, to maintain cover). A new CIA retirement provision treats certain classified CIA service by veterans as active‑duty service for Department of Veterans Affairs benefit purposes, following criteria in a classified annex. On foreign‑country issues, the bill orders repeated net assessments of China’s power in several domains, designates (or explicitly waives) a National Intelligence Manager for China, and calls for a National Intelligence Estimate on China’s biotechnology advances. It extends and adjusts the role of the intelligence community coordinator for Russian atrocities, directs a study on how the community has handled atrocity‑related intelligence since 2010, and requires continued intelligence support to Ukraine’s government for defending and retaking its territory, with notice to Congress if support is interrupted. Finally, the bill revises or repeals a series of older reporting requirements judged outdated or duplicative, updates rules for access to nuclear “Restricted Data” for top officials, requires an annual consolidated intelligence community drug control budget, and directs the Department of Energy and intelligence community to plan how to use a proposed “web of biological data.”

This bill is the main annual tool Congress uses to set money levels and major rules for U.S. intelligence agencies, so it directly affects how these agencies can plan, hire, buy technology, and run operations in FY2026. By reshaping counterintelligence under a new National Counterintelligence Center with broad authority, the bill could change how quickly and how consistently the government detects and responds to foreign spying, insider threats, and leaks of classified information. The bill places strong emphasis on open‑source information and commercial data as core parts of intelligence work. New definitions, oversight roles, training, auditing, and budget tracking are meant to organize how agencies buy and use data that is widely available or sold on the market, while also adding a duty to purge certain U.S.‑person information and keep privacy and civil‑liberties laws in view. How these rules are implemented will shape what data the government acquires about people and organizations, and how that data flows inside agencies. The provisions on artificial intelligence and advanced technology show that intelligence agencies are expected to adopt new tools quickly but under structured rules. Requirements to harmonize policies for training AI on classified data, to speed deployment reviews, and to produce an AI Security Playbook signal that AI will be central to future intelligence work, while concerns about cybersecurity and technology theft remain high. The ban on a named foreign AI application on national security systems is a concrete example of this risk focus. Workforce and oversight sections affect how people inside and outside government interact with the intelligence system. New limits on using political or ideological activism in personnel decisions and on certain diversity‑related motivations seek to define how “merit‑based” hiring and promotion must work in the intelligence community. At the same time, expanded congressional notification about FBI counterintelligence investigations of federal candidates and officials, and about watchlist policies and U.S. persons on watchlists, increases formal reporting on sensitive domestic‑facing activities, though the bill does not change underlying criminal laws. Internationally, the bill directs sustained analytic attention to China, Russia, foreign atrocities, and support for Ukraine. Regular net assessments of China’s power and a National Intelligence Estimate on Chinese biotechnology are meant to give policymakers more structured comparisons and forecasts. Required intelligence support to Ukraine, unless there is a “compelling interest” not to, ties intelligence operations directly to an ongoing major conflict and may affect how information is shared with a partner at war. Because many funding levels and operational details remain classified, the exact practical effects on specific programs, capabilities, and operations are not all visible in the public text and would depend on the classified annexes and later implementation decisions.

• Authorizes funding for all U.S. intelligence and intelligence‑related activities for FY2026, including a classified Schedule of Authorizations that sets detailed spending levels.
• Provides $674.5 million for the Intelligence Community Management Account and $514 million for the CIA Retirement and Disability Fund, with additional classified sums authorized.
• Creates a National Counterintelligence Center within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, headed by a Senate‑confirmed director who becomes the principal counterintelligence adviser to the President and DNI.
• Gives the Center authority to direct or approve counterintelligence activities by intelligence elements, access all counterintelligence information in their possession, transfer funds to support such activities, and run government‑wide damage assessments for significant unauthorized disclosures.
• Establishes a National Counterintelligence Program budget within the broader National Intelligence Program and requires periodic national strategies, outlook reports, and threat‑prioritization assessments.
• Redesignates the existing National Counterintelligence and Security Center as the National Counterintelligence Center and transfers related personnel, functions, and reporting requirements into the new structure, with temporary authority to move people and funds during transition.
• Requires each major intelligence element to designate a senior official responsible for biotechnology issues and notify Congress within 15 days of each designation.
• Directs the DNI to develop community‑wide policies for using classified data to train or refine AI models within 180 days, aiming to maximize usable data while protecting it.
• Orders guidance within 90 days to prioritize and speed reviews that authorize AI capabilities for operational use, with notice to Congress when a review lasts more than 60 days (for five years).
• Mandates that key intelligence agencies adopt a single set of metrics and methods to measure adoption, integration, and impact of emerging technologies, including AI, and brief Congress within one year.
• Requires the NSA, via its AI Security Center, to produce an “AI Security Playbook” with strategies to protect highly advanced AI systems from theft, including an unclassified component and reports to Congress within 180 days and one year.
• Prohibits use of the “DeepSeek” application (and successors from the same provider) on national security systems across the intelligence community, directing the DNI to issue removal standards and allowing narrow national‑security and research exceptions with risk‑mitigation rules.
• Authorizes the CIA to detect, disrupt, seize, or destroy unmanned aircraft over specially designated high‑risk CIA or ODNI properties under defined legal, coordination, notification, record‑retention, and sunset (December 31, 2029) conditions.
• Requires the Department of Defense’s intelligence components to check whether commercial data they plan to buy is already available from another component, with limited exceptions approved and reported by the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.
• Directs the Pentagon to build and maintain a secure capability to oversee, deconflict, and assess risk for all commercial vendors supporting clandestine DoD activities, with required implementation plans, certification, and progress briefings to Congress.
• Clarifies and expands the National Reconnaissance Office’s ability to procure and deliver commercial remote‑sensing imagery and data to meet defense, intelligence, homeland defense, civil partner, and capability‑improvement needs.
• Requires the FBI Director to notify congressional leadership and specified committees within 5 days whenever the FBI starts a counterintelligence assessment or investigation of a federal candidate, officeholder, or covered congressional employee, with an exception when the recipient is the target.
• Orders the Department of Energy’s Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence to require all DOE personnel to report personal or official travel to specified “countries of risk,” accept pre‑ and post‑travel briefings if requested, and generally bar DOE devices from those countries without approval.
• Defines “publicly available information,” “commercially available information,” and “open‑source intelligence” in statute and directs the DNI to make efficient, coordinated use of open‑source intelligence, including minimizing duplication and clearly assigning responsibilities for training, technology, data, requirements, partnerships, and governance.
• Assigns a specific official to oversee acquisition and management of commercially available information across the intelligence community, including deconfliction, requirement setting, metrics, and annual briefings to Congress beginning by May 31, 2027.
• Bars intelligence elements from moving or cutting open‑source intelligence funding above DNI‑set thresholds without the DNI’s prior approval and requires the DNI to oversee and evaluate open‑source activities and include them in budget materials.
• Requires common budget displays for FY2027–2029 showing how much is requested and spent on public, commercial, and other open‑source information by program, with personnel counts and comparisons to prior years.
• Orders a standardized training course on collecting public and commercial information for intelligence purposes and requires all relevant personnel to complete it within set timelines, with portability across agencies.
• Requires each intelligence element to purge incidentally collected public or commercial information that relates to U.S. persons and to follow existing privacy and civil‑liberties laws.
• Directs repeated audits and multi‑year briefings to Congress on National Intelligence Program and Military Intelligence Program spending for public, commercial, and other open‑source information.
• Requires the DNI to study and report within 90 days after starting how best to support other federal agencies’ open‑source intelligence needs and to resolve information‑sharing issues.
• Mandates unclassified narrative and rating portions of Defense Intelligence Agency performance appraisals and requires timely appraisals for many departing employees, unless their affiliation is classified.
• Prohibits requiring or rewarding political or ideological activism for positive personnel actions in the intelligence community, with an exception to preserve operational cover.
• Bars intelligence elements from taking personnel actions motivated by goals such as reversing societal discrimination or providing demographic “role models,” while allowing consideration of characteristics like language or background where they are bona fide occupational qualifications.
• Treats certain CIA service by veterans (as defined in a classified annex) as active‑duty service for Department of Veterans Affairs benefits, applying to injuries or illnesses incurred at any time.
• Requires recurring net assessments of China’s economic, technological, financial, trade, industrial, and diplomatic power relative to the United States, using open sources for U.S. data and all‑source intelligence for China, and sharing the results with agencies and Congress.
• Directs a National Intelligence Estimate on China’s biotechnology advances within one year and appoints (or explicitly waives) a National Intelligence Manager for China at the National Intelligence Management Council until December 31, 2030.
• Extends the intelligence community coordinator for Russian atrocities accountability through December 31, 2028, and requires a historical study of intelligence collection and analysis on global atrocities since 2010.
• Requires the DNI to ensure relevant intelligence elements provide intelligence support to Ukraine to help defend and retake its territory from Russia, unless the DNI finds a compelling reason not to, and to notify Congress of any interruption.
• Orders an annual consolidated Intelligence Community Drug Control Program Budget summary and certification that it supports national drug control strategies, with detailed amounts by element, program, and level.
• Modifies nuclear “Restricted Data” access rules so they do not apply to the President, Vice President, Members of Congress, or federal judges, instead requiring the Department of Energy and Security Executive Agent to maintain and verify a list of those officials.
• Repeals or trims multiple older statutory reporting requirements judged outdated or unnecessary across the National Security Act and past intelligence and defense authorization laws.
• Requires the FBI to notify congressional intelligence committees within 30 days of any material change to policies or procedures that govern the terrorist or transnational organized crime watchlists and to provide all governing guidance on request.
• Mandates two years of annual reporting on United States persons on the terrorist watchlist, including totals, list types, suspected affiliations, and nominating agencies.
• Directs the Department of Energy, in coordination with intelligence agencies, to develop a plan for intelligence use of a proposed “web of biological data” and brief Congress within 180 days.

• The bill does not itself appropriate money; it authorizes funding levels and programs that separate appropriations bills then fund, though many detailed numbers are in a classified annex.
• The National Counterintelligence Center is largely built by renaming and restructuring existing offices and authorities; some changes are technical but can shift who has formal decision‑making power and who reports to whom.
• The CIA unmanned‑aircraft authority applies only over “specially designated properties” listed in a classified annex and meeting set criteria, so the exact locations and scope are not public.
• The requirement to purge incidentally collected public or commercial information about U.S. persons relies on each element’s implementation and definitions of “incidentally collected,” which are not detailed in the public text.
• Personnel‑policy sections focus on reasons that may not motivate decisions, rather than specifying what criteria must be used, so their practical effect may depend heavily on internal guidance and enforcement.
• The mandate to support Ukraine’s efforts to “defend and retake” territory is framed around intelligence support rather than broader policy, but it implicitly links intelligence sharing to specific military objectives.
• Some benefits and eligibility rules, such as what counts as “covered service” for CIA veterans and which properties qualify for unmanned‑aircraft defenses, are defined in classified annexes, so the exact coverage is not visible to the public.
• Several provisions sunset on specific future dates (for example, CIA drone‑mitigation authority in 2029 and China‑focused mission‑manager requirement in 2030), meaning their continuation would require further legislative action.